Silver Dollar Sores?

[FishyJamesGill]

Hi, a few months ago one of my silver dollars developed a large white sore on the side of its body, this cleared up about 2 weeks later and then about 2 weeks ago the dollar developed the same thing again. This time it is one the other side of its body but is now really bad, and now it looks like there is a small black dot in the middle. One of the other silver dollars have developed this aswell on both sides of its body.

No other fish has got this nor have they had it before. I will try to figure out how to post a piture

Hope you can help

Thanks, James

 

[ZoddyZod]

we will need the following to help

Ammonia, nitrite & nitrate levels - tested with a liquid test kit

Current tank mates

Size of tank

maintenance/cleaning regime for the tank

any new introdutions to the tank?

 

[FishyJamesGill]

OK, I'm afraid I do not have a tester for the nitrate but ammonia is 0 and on the tester for nitrite it only goes down to <0.3mg/l so probably around 0

The 6 silver Dollars are with
1 Archer fish (only had him for a few weeks)
Frontosa
Blue Dolphin
Geophagus Jurupari
Clown Loaches
2 Blue Gouramis
2 tinfoil barbs
2 denison Barbs
2 angels
2 silver sharks
ruby shark
2 featherfin catfish

the tank is 6 foot which is about 620 litres (136 gallons)

and the tank has a 20 - 30% water change weekly

as said above, the only new addition to the tank was the archer fish, which I have had for aroun 3 - 4 weeks


Hope this helps, James

 

[ZoddyZod]

that's quite a mix!

I've asked the mods to move this to the Emergencies section where it will hopefully receive better attention.

I'm not familiar with the aggressive nature of several of those fish, but I think a couple of them could be potential bullies to the dollar.

One thing is for sure - the archerfish is a brackish water species and needs salt to be healthy. I'd look at rehoming that fish anyway.

Once the pics are up these will help the members give better advice.

 

[holidayinn]

Seeing as you have clown loaches, these are normally the first to show signs of illness...Are your silver dollars skittish? Could it be a flesh wound deteriorating?

 

[FishyJamesGill]

that's quite a mix!

I've asked the mods to move this to the Emergencies section where it will hopefully receive better attention.

I'm not familiar with the aggressive nature of several of those fish, but I think a couple of them could be potential bullies to the dollar.

One thing is for sure - the archerfish is a brackish water species and needs salt to be healthy. I'd look at rehoming that fish anyway.

Once the pics are up these will help the members give better advice.

Do you have any idea on how to post pictures, I cannot find a way at all

as for the archerfish, it seems to have settled very well, the shop had him in a freshwater tank with 3 others, which all looked very healthy, also, i heard that a lot of Brackish water fish can be moved to freshwater, as long as the salinity of the original water is not too much of a difference from fresh water. But if the fish does show any signs of bad health from the water, i will definately not want it to stay in fresh water, but so far, all is fine.

I know that they use their ability to spit water to get at insects in the wild, so I am feeding it mealworms. would you have any other ideas to give it better variety?

I hope we can sort out the silver dollars

Thanks, James

 

[ZoddyZod]

you need to use an image hosting site like flikr or photobucket to upload the pic, then you post the link to the board.

Brackish fish kept longterm in freshwater will live far shorter lives.

 

[FishyJamesGill]

Seeing as you have clown loaches, these are normally the first to show signs of illness...Are your silver dollars skittish? Could it be a flesh wound deteriorating?

The Dollars are not really that skittish, but it just seems weird that both fish have the sores in the same place, one of them has it in the same place on both sides...

 

[FishyJamesGill]

Thanks on how to get the picture on, the sore looks a little worse now as this was taken a couple of days ago, but not much difference.

On the other dollar it is a lot smaller but on both sides in the same place

Hope this helps

 

[holidayinn]

Something similar used to occur with my SD's, I put it down to aggressive tankmates and the skittish nature of my SD's. Imo, its missing scales prob due to a collision of some sort, a water change will help with the recovery...possibly meds/salt if it gets worse, but I'm not much help on meds, hardly ever use them.

 

[FishyJamesGill]

Thanks for all your help, I have been keeping an eye on them for a while, the SD with the sores on both sides has got a little worse but the other one doesn't look like it's getting any worse. If they do start getting a lot worse I will go down to my local fish store and buy some melafix, that seemed to help a lot last time this happened.

Thanks again

James